NBA says James Harden fouled Andre Iguodala on winning shot
The NBA has come out and said that James Harden should have been called for a foul on his shot over Andre Iguodala.
The Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets engaged in a crazy Game 3 in Houston on Thursday night. With the Warriors playing without Stephen Curry yet again, they finally found themselves facing a little adversity and a deficit late in the game against the Rockets.
With 10 seconds left, the Warriors took the lead off of a stolen inbound pass. That’s where things got crazy. With no timeouts remaining, James Harden came down the court, spun Andre Iguodala around and hit the game-winning shot to give the Rockets their first win of the series.
Upon further review, it looked like Harden clearly shoved Iguodala off of him so that he could get the room to make the shot and win the game. The NBA officially released an officiating report on Friday, and stated that the Harden should have been called for a foul for shoving Iguodala.
"Harden (HOU) initiates the contact with Iguodala (GSW) to create space and dislodges him from his legal guarding position."
From watching the game, it was clear right away that Harden had shoved off and a foul should have been called. However, it’s often that the ref is going to blow a whistle in those situations and thus Harden was able to get away with it and make the shot.
Still, the league has stated the correct ruling should have been called on the floor and that’s something that officials will be playing close attention to going forward. There doesn’t appear to be any sour grapes on the part of the Warriors and they took onus for the loss, especially Draymond Green.
The two teams will meet again for Game 4 and the big question will be whether or not Curry is back on the floor.
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